You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a Christian
you will rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do
not doubt their candour; but they never vote that way. Although in a
private letter or conversation you will express your preference that
Kansas should be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would
say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected from any
district in a slave State. You think Stringfellow and company ought to
be hung.... The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious,
and detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate the
course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the
master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. That is a
disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs,
and that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington, I voted for the
Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times; and I never heard of any one
attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the
extension of slavery. I am not a Know-nothing; that is certain. How
could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in
favour of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy
appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring
that _all men are created equal_. We now practically read it, _all men
are created equal except negroes_. When the Know-nothings get control,
it will read, _all men are created equal except negroes_ and foreigners
and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some
country where they make no pretence of loving liberty--to Russia, for
instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy
of hypocrisy.... My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading
subject of this letter I have more of her sympathy than I have of yours;
and yet let me say I am your friend for ever.

A. LINCOLN.